"The Lumberjack Song" is a song by the Monty Python

Monty Python

Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...

 comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 troupe. The song was written by Terry Jones

Terry Jones

Terence Graham Parry Jones is a Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, children's author, popular historian, political commentator, and TV documentary host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team....

, Michael Palin

Michael Palin

Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....

, and Fred Tomlinson.

It first appeared on the ninth episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...

, "The Ant: An Introduction" on BBC1 on 14 December 1969. The song has since been performed in several forms, including film

And Now For Something Completely Different

And Now for Something Completely Different is a film spin-off from the television comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus featuring favorite sketches from the first two seasons. The title was used as a catchphrase in the television show....

, stage

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl is a 1982 concert film in which the Monty Python team perform many of their greatest sketches at the Hollywood Bowl. The show also included filmed inserts which were mostly taken from two Monty Python specials, Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus, which had been...

, and LP

Monty Python's Flying Circus (album)

Monty Python's Flying Circus was the first album produced by the Monty Python troupe. It was released in both the UK and the US in 1970, with the US version featuring a back cover slightly different from the original UK version...

, each time started from a different skit

Sketch comedy

A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...

. At an NPR interview in 2007, Michael Palin

Michael Palin

Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....

 stated the scene and the whole song were created in about 15 minutes, concluding a day's work, when the Python crew was stuck and unable to come up with a conclusion to the barbershop sketch that preceded it.

Synopsis

The common theme was of an average man (played by Michael Palin

Michael Palin

Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....

 in the original television version, but in later live versions by Eric Idle

Eric Idle

Eric Idle is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, writer, and comedic composer. He was as a member of the British comedy group Monty Python, a member of the The Rutles on Saturday Night Live and author of the play, Spamalot....

) who expresses dissatisfaction with his current job (as a barber, weatherman, pet shop owner, etc.) and then announces, "I didn't want to be [the given profession]. I wanted to be... a lumberjack

Lumberjack

A lumberjack is a worker in the logging industry who performs the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to a bygone era when hand tools were used in harvesting trees principally from virgin forest...

!" He proceeds to talk about the life of a lumberjack ("Leaping from tree to tree"), and lists various trees (e.g. fir

Fir

Firs are a genus of 48–55 species of evergreen conifers in the family Pinaceae. They are found through much of North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, occurring in mountains over most of the range...

, larch

Larch

Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae. Growing from 15 to 50m tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains further south...

, Scots pine

Scots Pine

Pinus sylvestris, commonly known as the Scots Pine, is a species of pine native to Europe and Asia, ranging from Scotland, Ireland and Portugal in the west, east to eastern Siberia, south to the Caucasus Mountains, and as far north as well inside the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia...

, and others that don't actually exist). Ripping off his coat to reveal a red flannel

Flannel

Flannel is a soft woven fabric, of various fineness. Flannel was originally made from carded wool or worsted yarn, but is now often made from either wool, cotton, or synthetic fibre. Flannel may be brushed to create extra softness or remain unbrushed. The brushing process is a mechanical process...

 shirt

Shirt

A shirt is a cloth garment for the upper body. Originally an undergarment worn exclusively by men, it has become, in American English, a catch-all term for almost any garment other than outerwear such as sweaters, coats, jackets, or undergarments such as bras, vests or base layers...

, he walks over to a stage with a coniferous forest backdrop, and he begins to sing about the wonders of being a lumberjack in British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

. Then, he is unexpectedly backed up by a small choir of male singers, all dressed as Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 Mounties

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...

 (several were regular Python performers, while the rest were generally members of an actual singing troupe, such as the Fred Tomlinson Singers in the TV version).

In the original sketch from the programme and film version, the girl is played by Connie Booth

Connie Booth

Constance "Connie" Booth is an American-born writer and actress, known for appearances on British television and particularly for her portrayal of Polly Sherman in the popular 1970s television show Fawlty Towers, which she co-wrote with her then-husband John Cleese.-Biography:Booth's father was a...

, John Cleese

John Cleese

John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...

's then-wife; in the live version, the girl is played by Python regular Carol Cleveland

Carol Cleveland

Carol Cleveland is a British actress/comedienne, most notable for her appearances as the only significant female performer on Monty Python's Flying Circus.-Early life:...

. In the version from the film And Now For Something Completely Different

And Now For Something Completely Different

And Now for Something Completely Different is a film spin-off from the television comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus featuring favorite sketches from the first two seasons. The title was used as a catchphrase in the television show....

, it follows on from the "Dead Parrot

Dead Parrot

The "Dead Parrot Sketch", alternatively and originally known as the "Pet Shop Sketch" or "Parrot Sketch", is a popular sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus, and one of the most famous in the history of British television comedy...

" sketch with Palin's character leaving the pet shop as Eric Praline asks "I'm sorry, this is irrelevant, isn't it?."

In the song, the Lumberjack recounts his daily tasks and his personal life, such as having buttered scones for tea

Tea (meal)

Tea can refer to any of several different meals or mealtimes, depending on a country's customs and its history of drinking tea. However, in those countries where the term's use is common, the influences are generally those of the former British Empire...

, and the Mountie chorus repeats his lines in sing-song fashion. However, as the song continues, he increasingly reveals cross-dressing

Cross-dressing

Cross-dressing is the wearing of clothing and other accoutrement commonly associated with a gender within a particular society that is seen as different than the one usually presented by the dresser...

 tendencies ("I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flowers, I put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars"), which both distresses the girl and disturbs the confused Mounties, who continue to repeat and chorus his lines, albeit with increasing hesitance. The last straw comes when he mentions that he wears "high heels, suspenders

Garter (stockings)

Garters are articles of clothing: narrow bands of fabric fastened about the leg, used to keep up stockings, and sometimes socks. Normally just a few inches in width, they are usually made of leather or heavy cloth, and adorned with small bells and/or ribbons...

, and a bra

Brassiere

A brassiere is an undergarment that covers, supports, and elevates the breasts. Since the late 19th century, it has replaced the corset as the most widely accepted method for supporting breasts....

," and some of the Mounties stop repeating his lines, and they eventually walk off in disgust. Stunned by the Lumberjack's revelation, the girl cries out "Oh Bernard! And I thought you were so rugged!" (in some versions, she says, "I thought you were so butch

Butch and femme

Butch and femme are LGBT terms describing respectively, masculine and feminine traits, behavior, style, expression, self-perception and so on. They are often used in the lesbian, bisexual and gay subcultures...

!" and slaps him) before running off. In And Now For Something Completely Different, at the end of the song the Lumberjack is pelted with rotten fruit and eggs by the Mounties, who can also be heard shouting insults. Another notable difference is that, in the original version, the Lumberjack wishes he was a girlie "just like my dear mama," whereas subsequent versions replace "mama" with "papa," implying that the lumberjack inherited his tendency for transvestism

Transvestism

Transvestism is the practice of cross-dressing, which is wearing clothing traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often has additional connotations. -History:Although the word transvestism was coined as late as the 1910s,...

 from his father.

At the end of the version in Flying Circus, a letter written by an enraged viewer (voiced by John Cleese

John Cleese

John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...

) is shown to complain about the portrayal of lumberjacks in the sketch. The writer claims many of his friends are in the said profession and that "only few of them are transvestites." Before signing off, he reveals his name to be "Brigadier Sir Charles Arthur Strohm (Mrs.)," and in the postscript

Postscript

A postscript, abbreviated P.S., is writing added after the main body of a letter . The term comes from the Latin post scriptum, an expression meaning "written after" .A postscript may be a sentence, a paragraph, or occasionally many paragraphs added, often hastily and...

, he states that he "never kissed the editor of the Radio Times." It then cuts to a vox pop

Vox populi

Vox populi , a Latin phrase that literally means voice of the people, is a term often used in broadcasting for interviews with members of the "general public".-Vox pop, the man on the street:...

 of a screeching Pepperpot (Graham Chapman

Graham Chapman

Graham Arthur Chapman was a British comedian, physician, writer, actor, and one of the six members of the Monty Python comedy troupe.-Early life and education:...

) complaining about the inappropriateness of "all this sex on the television," exclaiming, "I keep falling off!"

Music

The music is similar to Là ci darem la mano, Don Giovanni's and Zerlina's duet in Act 1, Scene 2, of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 opera Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

.

Performances

A German version of "The Lumberjack Song" exists for which Palin learned the German text phonetically

Phonetical singing

Phonetical singing is when a singer learns and performs, the lyrics of a song by the words' phonetic sounds without necessarily understanding of the content of the lyrics....

 and the group of Mounties was replaced by a group of Austrian border guards. Instead of one of his parents, the German version credits the lumberjack's "Uncle Walter" as inspiring his passion for cross-dressing; this change was likely done simply for a rhyme with "Büstenhalter", the German translation for "bra", which caps the phrase preceding the "I wish I'd been a girlie..." line.

A version of the song present in this sketch was made in Portugal for a "Millennium" Bank campaign. The lyrics were slightly changed and translated into Portuguese, as the bank at the time was making an offer involving planting trees.

A Spanish language version of the song was created for a theatrical performance in 2004. The Yllana and Imprebis theatrical groups jointly presented a show at Madrid's Teatro Alfil, consisting of sketches adapted from the Monty Python repertoire. Their version of "The Lumberjack Song" was adapted for a Spanish audience so that the singer confessed not to having always wanted to be a lumberjack but having always wanted to join the Guardia Civil, the Spanish gendarmerie

Gendarmerie

A gendarmerie or gendarmery is a military force charged with police duties among civilian populations. Members of such a force are typically called "gendarmes". The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary describes a gendarme as "a soldier who is employed on police duties" and a "gendarmery, -erie" as...

. A chorus of uniformed Guardia Civil officers replaced the Mounties from the original television performance.

The song was performed at The Concert for George in November 2002, on the first anniversary of the death of George Harrison

George Harrison

George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

. This performance featured featured Palin, Cleveland, Idle, Jones, Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam

Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...

, Neil Innes

Neil Innes

Neil James Innes is an English writer and performer of comic songs, best known for his collaborative work with Monty Python, and for playing in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later The Rutles.-Personal life:...

 and special guest Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks

Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...

. At the conclusion of the performance, the troupe turned to face a portrait of George Harrison projected on the back of the stage, and saluted him. During his 1974 North American tour, Harrison would play a recording of "The Lumberjack Song" over the arena public address systems prior to taking the stage to perform. In 1975, while Monty Python were performing in New York, Harrison joined them onstage dressed as a Mountie for this song. Harrison also was the producer of the Python film Life of Brian

Monty Python's Life of Brian

Monty Python's Life of Brian, also known as Life of Brian, is a 1979 British comedy film written, directed and largely performed by the Monty Python comedy team...

.

In the Shining Time Station

Shining Time Station

Shining Time Station is an American children's television series co-created by Britt Allcroft and Rick Siggelkow. The series was produced by The Britt Allcroft Company and Quality Family Entertainment in New York for New York City PBS Station WNET, and was filmed first in New York and then in Toronto...

Christmas Special, Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr

Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

 as Mr. Conductor is dressed in lumberjack attire, he sings the intro to the song, but changes the lyrics to "I'm a lumberjack and I'm all right."

, the most recent public performance of the song by Python members was as an encore on the oratorio

Oratorio

An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

 Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)

Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)

Not the Messiah is a Monty Python comedic oratorio based on Monty Python's Life of Brian. It was written by former Python Eric Idle and collaborator John Du Prez, and commissioned by the Luminato festival....

at the Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

 on October 23, 2009, with Palin doing the lead performance.

Thematic successors

In Spamalot, the song "He is Not Yet Dead (playoff)" is thematically similar. Both feature a masculine man singing about seemingly masculine items, but gradually degrading, and both ending in the singer expressing a wish to wear "suspenders and a bra", and both choruses being disgusted at this point. In Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)

Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)

Not the Messiah is a Monty Python comedic oratorio based on Monty Python's Life of Brian. It was written by former Python Eric Idle and collaborator John Du Prez, and commissioned by the Luminato festival....

, the song "A Fair Day's Work" makes references to "The Lumberjack Song", with Eric Idle singing about the masculine virtues of work, but also of dressing in women's clothing to go to "naughty bars". The chorus responds that "That's enough of that, okay. We don't give a duck if you're completely gay." to the tune of the original "Lumberjack" song.

In popular culture

In Ultimate

Ultimate Marvel

Ultimate Marvel is an imprint of comic books published by Marvel Comics, featuring reimagined and updated versions of the company's superhero characters, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four. The imprint was launched in 2000 with the publication of the series...

 Elektra

Elektra (comics)

Elektra Natchios, usually referred to only by her first name Elektra, is a fictional character in publications from Marvel Comics.Elektra is a kunoichi – female ninja assassin – of Greek descent. She wields a pair of bladed sai as her trademark weapon. She is a love interest of the superhero...

Issue 2, the song is heard as a TV is flicked through channels.

In episode 10 of season 3 of King of the Hill

King of the Hill

King of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on Fox network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas...

, "A Firefighting We Will Go", Hank says that he'll sharpen all the axeheads in the fire department. To which Dale replies in the melody of the song, "Hank's a lumberjack and he's okay..."